September 16, 2016
Thoughts from the plane heading home.
Sometimes Stacy and I really struggle on how to deal with
all of this. Some days I think we are
nailing it, others, we are getting nailed.
Since we have moved back into the RMH this week, I have wondered how
other fathers would handle this situation.
I think about by brothers, college buddies, clients, cousins, elk
hunting buddies, and other friends and neighbors. They have great families and living the life dealt
to them. What would they do if out of
the blue one, then another, then another of their children came down with a
life changing disease that completely changed their lives? Would they sell out
and move to Calif? Get a different job? Find a home in the Bay area? Keep the
family together? Or just stay at home with the kids while the spouse tends to
the sick children? This question has haughted me for months as we have made
decisions regarding where we live, where our kids go to school, what activities
they are involved in, and how often I travel back and forth to Oregon. I feel so bad for Stacy when I leave her there
with the kids. I have seen the stress
load she carries on her back as she cares for Gage, helps the kids with
homework, keeps up with 3 medicine regiments, and runs them to different
activities and appointments. We think it
is important to keep our kids involved in activities, but when the activities
are at the same time at different locations, and the kids cannot be left in the
RMH alone, and some need to get to bed, and others have homework, it turns into
a rat race. So where do we draw the line?
Something has to give. I help out as
much as I can. The biggest help I can be
to her is helping get kids to school, and running them around after school to
activities. Is this the right thing? I
don’t know, but this is what we are going with. Please understand, I am not comparing our
lives to others, or even complaining (which doesn’t do any good), we are just
wondering if we are doing the right thing.
We have also wondered if having Megan home in Oregon was the
right thing to do. We miss her terribly
bad, especially Stacy. It would be so
good for Stacy to go home for a time to be a Mom to Megan. That would do them both a lot of good.
Living in the Los Alto home was a good thing for our
family. It gave Stacy the chance to be a
‘regular’ mother with cooking meals in a normal kitchen, girls and boys in separate rooms, a separate room for
Stacy and I, a kitchen table to sit and eat at as a family. Those are thing we
all take for granted. Honestly, this RMH
room is tiny, very nice and well decorated, but still tiny. I am not sure where Megan would sleep or
where she would keep her stuff if she were here. The RMH was not made for a family of seven. It
is made for one or two parents and one or two kids. So then the questions comes up if we shouldn’t
be taking the kids back to Oregon or just make it work in Calif. There is no way Stacy or I would want to
divide the kids and send them back to Oregon.
Gage and Stacy and myself would not cope with that very well. So now
that brings me back to my original question. What would other dad’s do in this
situation? Is there another solution? We
have looked (and continue to look) into other places to rent close to the hospital. The smallest apartments start around $3500/month
and a small house is around 6-9000/month.
That is crazy and totally impossible for us. I am already paying a hefty
mortgage back in Oregon.
Stacy and I are doing ok.
It is hard to be away from each other so much. My first night in Calif I woke up in the
middle of the night in a fog wondering who that was next to me in bed. That’s not something I am proud of. So many times Stacy or I need to talk and the
other is just not available. Honestly, we don’t know how single parents or other
couples handle it when the father is away from home for work. I just hate it! But for now, this is what needs to happen.
We have deer hunt coming up.
We (I) look forward to this more than about anything else. We have been going to this same spot since I
was 11 years old and I have looked forward to hangin’ out with my brothers
every year. It is a place that doesn’t change and is very peaceful. Anyway, we
made the decision that Hunter and I would fly back for the hunt, while Stacy is
in Calif with Gage, Lindsey and Sierra.
Sierra and Lindsey have too much homework, school, band concerts and
sports to be missing two days of school.
In Oregon we can pull this off because they don’t have school on
Fridays, but not in Calif. With the
travel time needed and missing school, it would be too much for the girls. As
for Hunter in the 5th grade, it will be good for his mother’s sanity to get him you in the
wild for a spell. We can also catch a
couple of Megan’s volleyball games which happen to be in Joseph and Wallowa
which is close to the hunt.
Stacy and I keep telling ourselves how well everything is
going and it is! Gage is NOT on in the hospital on the Berlin Heart and is
doing fantastic on the LVad. Rarely does
he have issues. Having said that, he did get dizzy today at school to the point
of collapsing. We take that very
seriously! That could be a sign of stroke, brain bleed, blood clot, etc. He did snap out and was check out at the hospital. Everything checked out fine, but we (Stacy)
sure watches him close now. I guess that’s the reason we live so close to the
hospital.
I hope you understand I am not complaining or comparing our
lives to others. These are just some of
the feelings Stacy and I have and some the inner struggles we are going
through.
September 18, 2016
Been home a few days now.
Good to see Megan and be together in our house. Watched her play volleyball yesterday in the
North Powder tournament. That was so
fun. She has improved a ton since I saw
her play 10 days ago. They are making a
copy of the games so Stacy can watch her daughter.
That’s it for now. I
am in my second life in Oregon. Strange
how I pick-up where I left off and keep on keepin' on.
Jason
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